We were thrilled to see how much you like our new modeling features. And as you can imagine, we are still discussing, which of your feature ideas should make their way into our next releases. With more than 200 suggestions the choice is great in every sense of the word.

Due to space restrictions and reasons of data privacy we will not publish your remarks or proposals word for word.

Still, I want to give you an insight into the most interesting results of this survey. In addition, a voting list with suggestions resulting from your feedback will be published here soon.

So please keep in touch, continue to give us your feedback (or think about starting to do so) and take a chance in influencing the future of ARIS directly.

Overview

The survey consisted of 15 questions about theARIS Express user experience and individual components such as Mini toolbar, SmartDesign, Symbols, Help and Video tutorials.

Most questions offered the possibility to give a rating from 1 (negative) to 10 (positive) and a text field for reasons or comments below.

There were 229 participants (plus 33 more, who were filtered out this time because they have never used ARIS Express or who did not complete the survey). The results of selected questions are listed below.

Do you use other ARIS products besides ARIS Express?

New and constant ARIS users were well balanced in this survey. 53% of the respondents use ARIS Express exclusively, which is very interesting as this is a rather new group of ARIS users. 47% also use other ARIS products such as ARIS Business Architect.

How satisfied are you with the installation & setup of ARIS Express?

For most users (84%) installation and setup went smoothly. If problems occurred, they were mostly due to Java’s Web Start or Internet security settings.

How satisfied are you with the "ease of use" of ARIS Express?

A vast majority (93%) likes the "ease of use" of ARIS Express. There were a couple of individual remarks mentioning slow performance, generally at start-up. Yet many more comments were positive, pointing out the "easy", "intuitive" and "user friendly" user interface, the "instant results" and the suitability for beginners.

How satisfied are you with the SmartDesign feature?

SmartDesign was praised for the easy entry of data, e.g. in phone interviews or modeling workshops. Still, it is not that well known yet, since up to now only 75 of 202 respondents have ever used this feature.

How satisfied are you with the Mini toolbar?

The Mini Toolbar received the highest scores in the survey. 33% gave it a 10, 96% rated it 5 and better. It is popular mainly because it was found to "accelerate modeling" and "reduce errors".

How satisfied are you with the object symbols?

The symbols are well-liked in general (86% >5). Some found them too "flashy" and there were a couple of remarks regarding the similarity of some symbols.

How satisfied are you with the ARIS Express Help?

The ARIS Express Help achieved good satisfaction levels. A few participants mentioned that they did not find what they were looking for. To clarify the reasons for this, more investigation on the actual questions and search terms is needed.

How satisfied are you with the ARIS Express Video tutorials?

Video tutorials were liked even more than Help. More tutorials are wanted on different levels of expertise.

Which improvements would you like to see in future versions of ARIS Express as a free and easy process modeling tool for beginners?

Participants made over 200 single suggestions as an answer to this question.

Linking between models and the visualization of links were also mentioned rather frequently.

Next steps

It is great to see that people like ARIS Express. As a next step, we will create a list of features people like to see. We will publish this list here in ARIS Community and you will be able to vote on your favorite feature so that we know what you want us to focus on in the future!